


Beyond Shivering

by ElenaCee



Series: Devil's Trap [15]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Temporary Character Death, Wings, divine intervention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaCee/pseuds/ElenaCee
Summary: A warehouse blows up. Lucifer and Chloe are too close, both to the blast and to each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you so much for your comments and kudos on the preceding bits, they mean a (Hell of a) lot to me. You guys are awesome.  
> *****  
> Second chapter added.

Chloe awoke from a complicated dream involving the Devil and angel wings - the memory dissipated as soon as full awareness returned - to find that most of it hadn’t been a dream.

The Devil really existed. Satan was here on earth. And he had wings. And he was her occasionally exasperating, often adorable partner. And they were lovers. And she was in his bed. And they’d had spectacular sex.

_ And a good thing it is, too, _ was her only mental comment about this extraordinary state of affairs. Yep. Clearly, she was beginning to take all this for granted. The craziness that her life had become when she’d realized that Lucifer Morningstar actually was  _ the  _ Lucifer was turning into the new normal. In fact, she couldn’t imagine her life without her Prince of Darkness in it. Should she be worried?

She wasn’t worried. If anything, she found that she was very warm, almost uncomfortably so. This also was her new normal at this time of day, and due to the fact that Lucifer lay wrapped around her doing his occasional octopus impression. His arms were enfolding her and holding her close to his hellishly hot body, his face was pressed against her neck, and one of his wings was covering them both, his soft white feathers keeping his inhumanly high body temperature from dropping and heating her up in the process.

Normally, she’d have tried to extricate herself at this point to cool down. This time, though, she wouldn’t. It wasn’t hard to see that he was still feeling cuddly and vulnerable because of the things she had done to him last night; he still needed to feel her, even in his sleep, and she wasn’t going to take that away from him, not after the sustained touch deprivation he had suffered during his long life.

The only surprising thing about it all was the fact that he was still asleep at this hour. On any other day, he would have been up and about before dawn. Turned out all it took to make the Devil sleep for more than three consecutive hours was exhaust him sexually. She supposed she should have known.

She looked at his peaceful face so close to hers, his features smooth and young-looking in repose, framed by black curls untouched by product and still mussed from passion, and a feeling of pride assailed her.  _ I did this. _

In one corner of his bedroom, glinting dully in the early morning light, stood Lucifer’s newest acquisition, the hellish torture-rack-turned-bondage-device that had been instrumental in achieving this state of affairs. Its numerous shackles and sliding extensions vividly reminded Chloe of what had happened last night.

She smiled with the memory. She’d been a naughty girl, and she’d enjoyed every minute of it. And so had Lucifer, who was getting a good night’s sleep out of it even now.

If that was the full extent of sin the Devil was going to tempt her to, she’d gladly join the rank of sinners.

Lucifer’s hot breaths were gusting slowly and evenly across her skin as he continued to slumber in her arms, his limbs warm and heavy and relaxed. It was contagious, seeing him like this, so Chloe slowly threaded the fingers of one hand into his hair and the fingers of her other hand into his feathers and relaxed, her eyes slowly drifting closed. Even if she shouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, she’d just enjoy feeling him close to her and the fact that, yes, the Devil really existed.

 

* * *

 

The next morning brought her coffee in bed, breakfast out on the balcony, and a new case. By late afternoon, they were hot on the chase.

“I saw him run in there,” Lucifer reported, pointing towards the entrance to the warehouse to the left.

Chloe nodded, panting, grateful for even a brief respite. The pursuit had gone on longer than anticipated, the suspect weaving in and out of narrow alleys and through and even over shacks and rooftops, and now zig-zagging through abandoned buildings. “Backup’s four minutes out,” she gasped.

“Too long. We’ll lose him in this,” Lucifer pointed out, nodding at the maze of paths and alleyways that extended between the buildings. “I could -” He looked up, then back to her.

“Go,” Chloe said immediately.

“Detective, he’s armed.”  _ You’ll be on your own, _ he didn’t say, didn’t need to say.

“I know. Go!”

He looked at her for a brief moment of indecision, then he nodded, deferring to her judgement. “Take care.” His wings appeared and unfurled behind him.

“You, too.” She watched him take to the air as she drew her sidearm and began advancing towards the door of the building.

Searching the sprawling warehouse would take too long, and the risk of the suspect getting away would be too high. She’d be better off staking out this entrance and hoping that Lucifer would catch any attempts to flee via other exits from his aerial position somewhere above the building.

It was a good plan, except nothing happened. The suspect remained conspicuous in his absence. After lying in wait for about five minutes, Chloe put a finger on her earpiece. “Lucifer, do you see him?”

“Negative,” his voice came from the small bud, and Chloe could hear his glee about using military terminology. The Devil really got a kick out of that, no matter how often Chloe reminded him that the police weren’t a military unit. “I do, however, see a rooftop entrance. Should I go in?”

“Wait,” she replied, looking up to see him circle slowly about fifty yards above. “Backup should be here any second. Let’s wait until the building’s surrounded before we go in.”

“Copy that.” There was a pause. “Do you smell gas?”

She did, but there wasn’t time to say so, because just then, the world exploded in a gigantic orange fireball.

Her last conscious thought was,  _ I’m too close to him. _

 

* * *

 

She was surrounded by white.

No contours, no silhouettes, nothing the eye could settle on. Just misty white in various densities, like… clouds?

She was drifting, like in a dream.  Looking down at herself, she did indeed have her body, even though she could hardly feel it. She was even wearing the same clothes.

_ Am I dead? _

Up ahead, an expansive structure came into view, with a single figure before it.

As she approached - without actively doing anything - she could discern the figure’s features; male, tall, very beautiful. He reminded her of Lucifer, and not just because of his wings.

“Chloe Decker,” he said, “what are you doing here? We are not expecting you.”

He flew to meet her before she could reach the structure that was looming behind him and, hovering, put his hand onto her head. “Go back, Chloe.”

 

* * *

 

A siren. Voices. Words she couldn’t make sense of.

She groaned.

A flurry of activity erupted next to her, but it had nothing to do with her, surely. She dully wondered why everyone was so excited. The voices grew louder, though they still didn’t make sense. Hands touched her neck, her wrist. Someone said, “That’s not possible.”

An unfamiliar face appeared in her field of vision. “Hello, Detective, good to see you awake. Can you tell me your name?”

She blinked, forcing the face into focus. Someone she didn’t know.  _ Doctor, _ her gut said. “Chloe Decker,” she managed, voice rough. “Unit 831.” She coughed. Her throat was dry. Why was her throat dry?

A memory nagged at her thoughts, but it dissipated like mist as soon as she tried to grasp it.

The face vanished, to be replaced by a hand. “How many fingers am I holding up, Chloe?”

“Two,” she forced out. “I know I’ve got a concussion,” she added, because she’d had more than one before and knew what they felt like, so they didn’t have to take her through the whole spiel to diagnose it.

Something else nagged at her. Something important. She closed her eyes, trying to think.

“Don’t go to sleep, Chloe,” the voice urged her.

What had happened? She couldn’t remember. Should that worry her?

“Chloe, stay with me.”

She was still looking for the words to tell them that this wasn’t her first rodeo in the concussion arena when darkness pulled her back under.

 

* * *

 

When she next woke up, she was aware enough to realize that she was feeling like crap, which almost made her want that cottony feeling from before back.

Everything hurt. Arms, legs. It hurt to breathe. Even her  _ hair  _ hurt.

This time, memory returned, albeit very slowly. There had been an explosion. The blast had lifted her up and thrown her against something hard, but she couldn’t remember the impact. She must have hit her head. That would explain the splitting headache and the lingering nausea. Concussion.

But at least, the fact that she could feel her hurting fingers and toes meant that her spine was intact. And the fact that she was able to think about all this coherently meant that she hadn’t hit her head too hard. So far, so good.

She opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of what had to be a hospital room. Carefully, she turned her head to one side, expecting to find Lucifer by her bedside. He’d always been there before whenever she woke up in a hospital.

Instead, she found Dan sitting on a chair next to her bed. “Hey, Chloe,” he said softly. “You gave us quite a scare. How’re you feeling?”

Lucifer. He’d been there, too, in the air above the warehouse that went ka-boom. He’d been too close to her.

He wasn’t here now.

She worked her mouth and throat. “Dan, where’s Lucifer? How is he?”  _ Say he’s okay. Please, say he’s okay. _

“I don’t know,” Dan said. “I’m sorry. No one is allowed to see him. He’s in quarantine.”

“Quarantine?” she echoed, trying to think. “He’s in a hospital, then?”

Dan nodded. “Yeah, this one, in fact. It’s got the best microbiology department in LA, apparently.”

She stared, not even knowing where to start. Lucifer in a hospital,  _ this  _ hospital, condition unknown, probably too close to her. She reached out and grabbed Dan’s hand. “You need to get him out of there, Dan.”

“I know,” he said, “I tried. We all did. No dice. He’s apparently triggered some sort of epidemiology procedure thing. Ella’s there, trying to run interference, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do.” He patted her hand. “Chloe, how are  _ you  _ feeling? Do you remember what happened?”

“If he can’t get out, then  _ I’m _ getting out of here,” Chloe said, trying to raise herself up. The room promptly started spinning, making her fall back against the pillows. “Ugh.”  _ Oh yeah, concussion. _

Her ex gave her a long-suffering look. “Chloe, you may not remember this, but you were clinically dead. So, maybe, take it easy?”

“Well, I’m not dead now,” she returned, “and Lucifer’s in the hands of human doctors, Dan, while I’m close enough to make him vulnerable. How easy do you think I can take it?”

“You were dead, Chloe!” he said, more intensely. “No one knows for how long, exactly. The doctors called it when they found you. You were  _ dead. _ ”

That brought her up short.

“They found you near the blast site.” Dan’s voice had that monotonous quality it acquired whenever he was holding on to his composure by a thread. “You had no pulse. Apparently, your heart restarted by itself while they were getting out the field trauma equipment.”

She stared at him some more, her thoughts racing. There had been something… a memory she’d tried to grasp. But, nope, still gone.

“You’ve got no broken bones,” Dan went on, “not a single broken bone, not even any scratches, nothing more serious than a concussion. Considering where you were in relation to the blast, and how much damage was done to the area, it’s nothing short of a miracle.”

_ A miracle. Of course. _

She smiled and closed her eyes.  _ Thank you, Dad. Thank you. I can call You Dad now, right? _

“So, maybe, don’t overdo it, okay?” Now, she could hear the tremor in Dan’s voice.

She opened her eyes to look at him. “Sorry, Dan,” she said. “I didn’t realize. How long was I out? Is Trixie okay?”

He smiled reassuringly. “She’s in school, she doesn’t know what happened. I’ll bring her here when she’s done for the day. And you only lost eighteen hours or so. The most important thing is you getting back on your feet, Chlo.”

I’m fine now,” she protested. “Just a little dizzy.”

He nodded. “Sure. Just promise me you won’t pull any stunts until the doctors have cleared you.”

“But, Dan, Lucifer -”

“We’re doing what we can for him. There’s nothing you can do that we aren’t already doing, okay?”

She felt her jaw set. “I can get the hell away from him is what I can do.”

“Not right now, you can’t,” Dan said, doing his own jaw setting. Then his expression softened. “Please, Chlo, we came way too close to losing you. Don’t… Don’t do anything stupid. If not for me, then for Trixie. And Lucifer.” He swallowed. “Think of what losing you would do to  _ him. _ ”

 

* * *

 

Cold.

Numbing, relentless cold.

He simply existed in it. It was all there was. His whole world was the cold. A hostile cold. A cold beyond shivering.

After a while, out of the all-pervading cold, a name came to him.  _ Samael. _

It sparked a memory.  _ White. Soft. Warm. _

He didn’t remember what it felt like to be warm. But he remembered not being cold.

He also remembered frustration, anger, rage. Falling. Falling into Hell.

No, not Samael.

_ Lucifer. _

The name triggered more memories. Eons of being a torturer. He hadn’t been cold then, either.

But. He wasn’t in Hell anymore, was he. He’d left his throne, gone topside. To earth. Best decision he’d ever made.

Then he’d met a miracle. Chloe.

_ Right. _

Lucifer opened his eyes. His lids seemed to weigh a ton, so that was a lengthy process. When his eyes finally focused, he found that he was in a small room, white, nondescript. Unfamiliar.

_ What the - _

He was still so. bloody. cold. And he didn’t know where he was, or how he had got here. What had happened? Why was it so hard to think?

Well, not a problem. He’d just walk away. Out of this numbing cold. Back into warmth and being able to think straight.

But when he tried, he found he couldn’t move. Raising an arm was plain impossible; the blasted thing wouldn’t budge. The cold had clearly rendered him weaker than a newborn kitten. Even turning his bloody head was an effort. He could hear himself pant with it when he did. And he couldn’t summon his bloody wings, either, not that he could actually feel them.

When he looked to the side, he saw his own arm, with wires attached to it. No, not wires. Tubes. They were dark red. Blood red. And they were attached to a device that was humming, next to his… bed.

He was lying in a strange bed, alone. And he couldn’t get out. The bloody nerve of whoever had….

But his rage, such as it was, found no target. He was alone in this room. An unfamiliar feeling began to take root in his chest.

Hospital. Must be. Why was he here? What on earth had happened? What was that thing doing to him?

And why was he so bloody cold?

And - -

Chloe.

He remembered bits and pieces now. He remembered smelling gas, seeing it light up and explode, remembered trying to get to her. He hadn’t been fast enough. The blast had hit him head-on  just as he was diving down to her, tossed him back up into the air to flail out of control, like a paper airplane in a gale. He had felt the ripping pain as both his wings became dislocated at the same time from the sheer force of the shock wave hitting him, and then he’d fallen - fallen once again - to crash into the wreckage of the warehouse he’d been flying above when it happened.

Chloe. She’d been too close to the blast site. That memory was all too clear.

He remembered seeing it take her, throw her against the wall of the next building, before the orange flame had engulfed him and he’d barely managed to switch planes of existence to avoid getting burned - again.

He’d seen her smashed into a wall and to the ground to lie there like a broken doll.

No human could survive this.

He’d come back to the earthly plane the very next second, just before his dislocated wings became unusable for plane travelling. He couldn’t fly anymore, though, so he’d instinctively tucked his wings away to minimize their movement while he fell like a stone, battered by hot winds and the despair of knowing that he couldn’t get to Chloe, couldn’t save her, and that it was too late anyway.

He’d blacked out when he hit the ground.

Now, though, he didn’t feel any pain. All he felt was cold. Deep space cold. He could feel it slow his thoughts, like cotton wadding in his brain. He couldn’t even tell what form he currently was in. But it didn’t matter.

_ Chloe. _

She was gone.

The cold in his body was joined by the cold of despair.

He’d lost her. He’d lost his miracle.

Her soul must be in Heaven now, where he’d never be allowed to follow. Beyond his reach, forever.

He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the cold.

Nothing would ever matter anymore, ever again.

 

* * *

 

“The first responders found Mr. Morningstar on top of the ruined building,” Dr. Fowler explained. “He must have been on the rooftop when the blast happened.”

Chloe resisted the urge to tap her foot. “That doesn’t explain why he’s in quarantine, Doctor,” she said with forced patience.

Trixie tilted her head up to give her a worried look.

Chloe smiled at her little monkey reassuringly, but the glance she threw the doctor remained hard.

He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m getting to that, Detective. When he was found, your partner was running an extraordinarily high fever that couldn’t be explained solely by his injuries. It’s usually a sign of a prior infection, so the doctor from the ambulance that next arrived on the scene sent a blood sample in for routine screening and preemptively ordered the quarantine.”

_ Uh oh, _ Chloe thought. Ella had mentioned Celestial bugs, and Chloe herself knew all about Lucifer’s inhumanly high body temperature.

“So, purely routine?” Dan asked to clarify.

The doctor nodded. “He’ll remain quarantined while we’re waiting for the screen; also purely routine. He’ll be transferred to a trauma ward as soon as his screens are clear, to be treated for numerous internal injuries.”

Chloe nodded. “Can I see him?”

“Not while he’s in quarantine.” He saw her expression, and added, “Not without a lot of bureaucratic hoop jumping, at any rate.”

She nodded again. She’d jump all the hoops that needed jumping, and then some. “So, when do you expect the screen back, then?”

“By tonight, but only if nothing unusual comes up. In any case, he’ll stay in the microbio unit until his fever’s back down.”

_ Yeah, good luck with that. _ “Right.” Chloe gave the doctor a bright smile. “I’m checking myself out, then.” Get some distance between her and Lucifer and give him the chance to heal and to devil himself out of his predicament.

“Chloe….” Dan began, then saw her face and wisely fell silent.

Dr. Fowler clearly didn’t recognize the signs, though. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said. “You’ve got a pretty bad concussion, and it really would be better if you waited it out a bit longer. But I can’t keep you here, of course.”

“Noted,” Chloe said. “Uh, Dan, could you see to it that I get my things back? There must be a necklace with a pendant on it that means a lot to me.”

“Got it all here,” Dan said, nodding resigned at the duffle bag at his feet. He really knew her well.

Trixie looked at her conspiratorially. “You mean the pendant from Lucifer, Mom?”

“Yes, honey.”

Trixie nodded knowingly but didn’t say anything, and Chloe wondered when her little monkey had grown up so much.

She waited until the doctor had left before unscrewing the pendant on her necklace and pulling out the single down feather it contained.

“Chloe?” Dan asked. “What’s going on?”

“Going to heal myself so I can get the hell out of here without falling flat on my face,” she said, holding the fluffy white thing by its stem between thumb and forefinger. It glowed softly, ready to work its magic.

She placed it on her forehead. “You may want to close your eyes,” she said, remembering how Amenadiel’s feather had healed Lucifer, and the bright light it had emitted as it did its work.

A feeling of warmth began to spread from her forehead all over her body, and Chloe nearly moaned with relief as all the pain evaporated and the lingering nausea eased to nothing; even a soft buzzing sound she hadn’t been aware had been in her ears vanished.

Seconds later, she felt like she’d been reborn. The feather, though, was gone. She smiled. Fortunately, she knew a guy.

 

* * *

 

It had been three hours now since she’d left the hospital. Darkness had fallen, and Lucifer still hadn’t turned up.

For some reason, she had been confident that all she needed to do was give him back his invulnerability by getting some distance between them, and he’d find his way out of the hospital and back home. But now, it was looking like that wasn’t happening.

Her cell phone had been destroyed in the blast. She assumed that Lucifer’s had suffered the same fate. Fortunately, there was a landline in Lucifer’s penthouse, and she was using it to get on everyone’s nerves.

“He’s still in the quarantine unit,” Ella was saying. “I’m trying to get access to him, but I doubt it’ll work. His screens came back. They said something about exotic contagions, which means that this is no longer routine. Access for attending physicians only.”

“But, Ella, I don’t understand. He should be able to just walk out of there, or fly out, in a pinch. He’s the Devil!”

“You’d think so, yeah,” Ella said on the line. “I can see him through an observation window from where I am now. He’s either asleep or unconscious. Hasn’t moved at all the whole time I’ve been here. Something’s wrong, Chloe.” She hesitated. “I don’t think he’s getting out of this one by himself.”

Fear gripped Chloe’s heart with an icy fist. “They must be doing something to him, then, something he can’t heal. Please, find out what it is. I’m on my way.”

 

* * *

 

Ella met her at the elevators in the hospital’s ground floor. The usually bubbly and cheerful scientist was looking decidedly worried. “Let’s go talk over there,” she said, dragging Chloe towards a corner that was out of the way of the main hubbub.

“Right,” she added, looking around briefly. “Here’s the gist. Apparently, he scared the living crap out of everyone when they brought him in with a temp of, well, you know. A human would be dead, sort of thing. Nothing they did or gave him to bring down his ‘fever’-” Ella did the air quotes - “ worked, naturally, so, in the end, they took drastic measures to prevent brain damage, or so they thought. He’s now hooked up to a blood cooling device. They’re literally channeling his blood through the device to cool it down to what’s normal for a human and then putting it back into him.”

_ Normal human body temp. For him, that’s severe hypothermia, _ Chloe realized. _ They’re giving him fucking hypothermia. _

Ella saw Chloe’s face and added, “They mean well, but….”

Chloe nodded, ruthlessly shutting down her feelings to focus on the crisis. If she thought about this too much -  _ this is deliberate torture _ \- she wouldn’t be able to function. “So, how do we get him out?”

Ella sighed. “No idea. I’ve knocked on the window to his room to get his attention, but he’s not responsive. He may be too hypothermic, or maybe it’s something else.”

“Could we pose as physicians and just wheel him out?”

“Don’t think so,” Ella said. “Not so easily, anyway. They think he’s carrying a new form of the bubonic plague, or something. He’s under lockdown. We’d need some ID and all, or a warrant at least.”

_ That would take too long. _ “Dammit. So, what now? A little divine intervention, maybe?” She pulled out her phone, scrolling down her contacts till she reached Amenadiel.

“Chloe!” the voice of Lucifer’s brother greeted her. “This is a surprise.”

Despite everything that was going on, in that moment, Chloe realized how much she liked him and how little she actually knew about him.  _ Need to rectify that pronto. _ “Amenadiel. I realize that I only seem to be calling you when I need your help.”

“What has Luci done now?” Amenadiel replied in that long-suffering tone of big brothers everywhere, including Heaven, apparently.

“It’s not his fault, actually,” she said, and went on explaining the situation, ending with, “We can’t even get to him, so I was wondering, is there anything you can do?”

There was protracted silence on the other end of the line.

Frowning, Chloe looked at her phone. The call was still connected. “Amenadiel? Are you there?”

Another worrying pause, then the big angel’s voice was back. “We’re in his penthouse now, but I’ll need your help. Whatever’s wrong with him apparently can’t be healed by divinity.”

“What?” Chloe said, confused. “You already got him out? It’s only been, like, five seconds -”

“I’ll explain once you get here. Hurry.” The call disconnected.

_ Right. _ “Let’s go,” she said to Ella, who had listened in. “My car’s right outside.”

“Actually,” her friend said, “I’ve got an idea, but I’ll need to swing by the lab. I’ll need tools I don’t have at home. Meet you at Lucifer’s.”

 

* * *

 

The elevator dinged open, and Chloe practically ran into Lucifer’s bedroom, where she could see Amenadiel’s dark shape leaning over a heap of blankets that she assumed contained Lucifer.

The elder angel looked up at her. “He’s not responding; he’s not asleep, though, he feels very cold, the blankets aren’t helping, and I don’t know what to do,” he said, voice very soft, and Chloe wondered whether this was the first time he had ever admitted this kind of weakness to a human.

She leaned over the heap to find Lucifer’s exposed face, the only bit of him that wasn’t swathed in blankets. His eyes were closed, his black lashes forming a stark contrast to the whiteness of his skin. She didn’t think she’d ever seen human skin look so white (except for dead bodies, which wasn’t a thought she wanted to be having right now).

Putting a hand on his forehead, she felt worryingly cool skin. “We need to warm him up,” she stated the obvious without looking at Amenadiel. “There should be three heat packs somewhere in his bathroom. Find them, please, and put them in the microwave. Five minutes.” Feeling Amenadiel move away, she pulled the blankets off to reveal Lucifer’s form, still wearing hospital shrubs, and began to rub his chest and tap his cheeks. “Lucifer. Lucifer, wake up.”

His lids twitched. Encouraged, Chloe framed his face with both hands, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks. “Come on, my Prince of Darkness, time to wake up, okay?”

She felt his breath brush her fingers; cool breath when it should be hot like desert air. Hypothermia, she remembered from her training, also caused mental confusion, and it had really gotten bad when the victim stopped shivering.

Lucifer wasn’t shivering. “Lucifer,” she tried again. “Wake up, please, wake up. Look at me. Show me you’re still in there.”

From somewhere behind her, she could hear the sound of Lucifer’s microwave humming to life.

“Lucifer…” Not knowing what else to do as long as she couldn’t actively warm him up, she pressed her lips to his, feeling cool flesh touch hers.

The rhythm of his breathing changed. She pulled back, watching his lids twitch again and finally rise.

“Lucifer.” She felt her lips stretch into a smile.

His lips formed a soundless “Chloe”. He looked back at her, blinking slowly, his blank expression slowly morphing into one of confusion. Then his eyes darted away from hers to look at the ceiling. He blinked again. “Where…?”

“You’re home, Lucifer,” she said, and was promptly assaulted by a déjà vu of when Lucifer had been ill and hadn’t recognized his home. “In your penthouse. Los Angeles, remember?”

“This… isn’t Heaven?”

_ Right. Hypothermia. He’s confused. _ “No, not Heaven, Lucifer. Earth. We’re on Earth.”

“But… I saw you d--” 

_ Die. I saw you die. _ Belatedly, Chloe realized what was going on. He wasn’t confused from the hypothermia, or at least not about this. The doctors called it, Dan had said. Lucifer must have seen her get hit. He’d been circling right above her when it happened.

He thought they were both in Heaven now. He’d been thinking that she was dead, this whole time.

She framed his cool face in her hands again. “I’m not dead, Lucifer,” she said, holding his dark, beseeching gaze. “I used your feather to heal myself. I’m fine, see?” With that, she moved in to kiss him again.

He made a noise like someone emerging from a nightmare, and then his arms clumsily went up and around her, holding her to him weakly, so very weakly. The rhythm of his breathing disintegrated as he clung to her with what was left of his strength, and Chloe felt her eyes sting with another déjà vu.

This was his greatest fear - seeing her die. He’d dreamed it before when his Father sent that vision. Now that he’d been convinced it had happened in real life, it had sent him straight into catatonia.

“I’m here,” she said between kisses, “I’m fine, I’m alive.” She pulled back once more. “Look at me, my love. Look at me.”

He did, eyes wet, lips trembling, panting with effort, and then he reached out for her again. “Thought I’d lost you,” he whispered brokenly.

She pulled him close, feeling him seek her meager, human body heat, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to warm him but unable to refuse him.  _ Hurry up, Amenadiel, _ she thought, running her hands over Lucifer’s body again and again, cupping his face, catching his still slightly unfocused gaze, and telling him over and over that she was alive while he sighed softly on each exhalation.

“I think your Father… did something,” she said into his hair as she wrapped her arms around his body and felt his cold hands press against her. He still wasn’t shivering.

Her statement was met with silence and a sigh, and she wondered whether she should have saved this bit for later. He clearly wasn’t in any shape to deal with his complicated relationship with his father right now. He barely was when he was fully functional.

A soft beep announced that the microwave had finally finished, and seconds later, the mattress dipped under Amenadiel’s weight. “Where should I put these?” he said, holding the heat packs. They looked tiny in his big hands.

She laid Lucifer down onto his side and took two packs from him. They were very hot, almost too hot, which she hoped would be warm enough for her hellion. “Put that last one against his lower back,” she instructed, placing one pack so it rested against Lucifer’s stomach, and the other by the back of his head.

With a deep groan, Lucifer dragged his arms down and his hands against the source of heat he could feel on his stomach while Chloe placed the duvet back over him to insulate him now that he had the heat packs warming him.

Amenadiel watched. “I’ve been trying to get him to wake up for more than an hour, and you manage it in thirty seconds,” he said in a mixture of admiration and reproach.

“More than an hour?” Chloe shook her head at him. His sense of time must be off. An hour ago, Lucifer had still been in that hospital. “That reminds me, how did you manage to get him here so quickly?”

“I’ve slowed time,” he explained. “For me, almost two hours passed while time nearly stopped for the rest of the universe. I thought it best not to have anyone see me bring him out of the hospital.”

_ Oh. Well. Yeah, that made sense. _

“So,” Lucifer’s slurry voice interjected, “you’ve got your powers back, then, Brother?”

“Yes,” Amenadiel said softly, leaning in to tuck the duvet more firmly around him. “They came back when my wings did. And speaking of, what’s wrong with yours?”

Belatedly, now that Amenadiel mentioned it, Chloe realized that Lucifer’s wings remained hidden when he could be using them to warm himself back up.

“Don’t know,” Lucifer said, eyes closing. “Can’t feel them. I’m so cold….” A violent tremor wracked him.

“Finally,” Chloe whispered, back to petting his hair, feeling him shiver under her hand. The shivers meant that finally, Lucifer’s body was once more able to heat itself up. It meant that the worst was behind him.

“Oh yeah, I remember,” Lucifer added, eyes still closed. “They became dislocated in the explosion. I’m actually glad now that I can’t feel them.”

Chloe looked at Amenadiel to see his reaction. Dislocated wings sounded terrible to her, and she felt affirmed in her reaction when the dark-skinned angel compressed his lips.

“We’ll deal with that when you’re warmed up,” Amenadiel said. “I’ll only pull something if I try to set them now.”

Lucifer nodded, teeth beginning to chatter.

“I thought these things would warm him up,” Amenadiel said to Chloe, the reproach in his voice now unmistakable.

“They are, that’s why he’s shivering. He was too cold to before.”

Amenadiel gave her a blank look. “I don’t understand.”

“Hypothermia’s funny like that,” she explained. “When it gets real bad, the body stops fighting it. If he’s shivering now, it means his body is expending energy to heat itself.”

“Hey,” Lucifer complained. “I’m right here.”

Amenadiel looked down at his shivering brother, biting his lips in obvious conflict. To Chloe, he looked like he was fighting himself over something. “This is no good,” he said, his eyes now on Chloe. “I apologize, but… I have to do this.”

With that, his wings appeared, dark grey and beautiful, and he peeled off the duvet covering Lucifer to pull him against his body and hold him close and mantle his wings around him.

Instinctively, Chloe moved away to give them room as Lucifer clung to Amenadiel with soul-deep sigh, his own arms closing about his brother’s more substantial form. She grabbed the forgotten heat packs, maneuvered herself so she ended up behind Lucifer, and placed the packs against his back, eliciting another sigh.

They stayed like that, inside a little capsule of heat formed by Amenadiel’s wings, while the packs slowly cooled. At one point, the dark-skinned angel met Chloe’s eyes with a slight, apologetic smile. Chloe assumed it was because of him usurping her place, so she gave him a smile in return. _ It’s fine. If I can’t help him, I’m glad you’re here to. _

At some point, the elevator’s ding announced the arrival of another visitor, who turned out to be Ella. She was carrying a bag and a cable roller.

Making a beeline for Lucifer’s bed, she stared at Amenadiel - who merely inclined his head towards her but otherwise made no movement. Then her eyes fell on the metal contraption in the corner. “Eugh,” she commented, then gave Chloe a brief look of mixed surprise and recognition before dropping the bag and opening it.

Chloe merely blinked at her. She wasn’t apologizing for anything. “What you got there, Ella?” she asked softly.

Ella stood, holding up what appeared to be an electric blanket. “I replaced the fuse in this thing with something a little more powerful and hacked the thermostat so it goes up to a hundred and sixty degrees,” she said, plugging it into the cable roller and looking around for a power socket. “Should be toasty warm, even for the Devil.”

“Wow, Ella, that’s great. Thank you.” Chloe took the blanket from her and draped it around Lucifer’s back while Amenadiel pulled back his wings a bit to give her room.

Lucifer noisily protested the absence of his brother’s wings around his back, but as soon as the blanket was plugged in and the thermostat set as high as it would go, he gave a positively orgasmic moan and clutched the blanket to himself, slumping against Amenadiel.

Amused and relieved, she enveloped his blanketed form in her arms. The heat that the blanket emanated was considerable. “How’s that?” she asked, kissing his temple.

He groaned again. “Heavenly,” he then said without thinking, then blinked his eyes open. “Well. Y’know what I mean.”

Smiling, she kissed his nose and pulled the blanket in closer around his neck, eliciting another moan.

Ella, watching at the scene unfold, grinned. “Well, I’d call that a resounding success.” She looked at Amenadiel. “Nice wings.”

The dark-skinned angel tore his eyes away from his brother to look at her and promptly hid his wings with a slightly apologetic air.

Ella’s grin widened. “You know, how about we go over there, Amenadiel? Leave this slightly crowded bedroom and, like, have a drink at the bar?”

Gratefully, Chloe watched them leave, settling down on the bed with her blanket-heated Devil, promising him silently that she’d stay here until he was back to his hellishly hot self, however long it would take. And if he needed reassurance that she was indeed still alive, she’d be happy to give it to him.

 

* * *

 

Much later, amidst much cursing, Amenadiel set Lucifer’s wings while Ella looked on, color-commentating.

Afterwards, Chloe spent a long time grooming them, preening each individual feather while Lucifer, who had stopped shivering at long last, kept rewarding her with soft purring sounds.

 

* * *

 

And still later, some time after Ella and Amenadiel had left the penthouse, Chloe noticed movement by the balcony door. Coming fully awake, she saw a male figure who looked a lot like Lucifer stand there motionless, just inside the room, looking at the two of them, an expression of questioning confusion on his face.

Chloe, still holding her now deeply asleep Prince of Darkness in her arms, looked back at him, making no move while trying to convey with her expression that this was where she was going to stay, right here with the Devil, whoever his strange look-alike was, and if he didn’t like it, he knew where the door was.

After a while, the figure shrugged, nodded to himself, and disappeared in a gust of wind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turned out I needed to add an afterthought.

 

When Chloe woke up, she found herself alone in her bed.

Her arms were empty; there was no warm cuddly Devil next to her, no divine white feathers covering her, no dark brown eyes staring into hers to be the first things she saw when she opened her eyes. This was unacceptable. She wanted her Devil.

She gave a mighty whine of protest.

Nothing happened, except for distant bumping sounds.

Turning onto her back, she whined again, more loudly.

The bumping came closer; her bedroom door flew open; a tall, broad-shouldered, be-bathrobed figure (they were in her apartment with the dreaded no-nudity-rule in force) appeared in the doorway, promptly grew wings, and launched itself into the air to soar down upon her. To one side of the bed, something fell onto the floor with a dull thud as a wing tip brushed whatever it was off the bookshelf.

Suppressing a giggle and trying to keep a stern expression, she wrapped her arms around Lucifer. “So. Where have you been?” she asked in her best mom voice. The “young man” was unspoken but heavily implied.

Holding himself up by his arms to avoid crushing her, he, in turn, gave her his best puppy-dog eyes. “I am so terribly sorry, my love. I was unavoidably detained, ‘cause I really needed to mmphfff.”

She shut him up by kissing him, because she had no doubt that otherwise he would tell her, at length and in great detail, what exactly he’d been doing that had brooked no interruptions, and it occurred to her that maybe she didn’t really need to know.

“I missed you,” she said after she’d released him. Her hands meanwhile found their familiar places buried in his feathers, which had the immediate effect of making him slump boneless onto her. “Oof,” she added.

He shifted his position to fit himself in next to her, his head on her shoulder, and nuzzled into her neck. “Sorry,” he breathed against her skin. “I had misjudged the time it would take me to finish _ahhhh.”_

Gently scratching the fingertips of both hands over the hot skin of his wings underneath the down feathers clearly had the same effect as kissing him. “Don’t tell me,” she said, continuing her petting.

He made the most adorable noises for a bit, but finally found himself enough to force out, “But you asked!” with all the wounded confusion of a perpetually twelve-year-old.

“True, but what I wanted to hear was, ‘I was in the kitchen making you breakfast’, or something like that,” she said, not letting up. She was enjoying his helpless writhing far too much.

He shuddered, but didn’t pull his wings out of her grasp. “How do you know that wasn’t what I was gonna say?” he managed, voice breathy.

Fun as this was, Chloe realized that, if she went on like that, they’d be having sex in five minutes, tops. She simply couldn’t resist him when he got like that, all uninhibited and vulnerable with that damned - sorry - purr in his voice. And she’d have no one to blame but herself. So she forced herself to pull her fingers out of his soft down feathers and instead to stroke her hands down his long primaries, soothing instead of arousing.

“Aww,” he protested, “things were just getting interesting. And interested.”

She snorted. Squashed close together as they were, she could feel exactly what “things” of his were getting “interested”. “Trixie’s downstairs,” she reminded him, in case he didn’t know, which he should, seeing as he’d been telling her daughter Bible stories from the Devil’s perspective yesterday all evening.

“Relevance, Your Honor,” he purred, pulling in his wings to settle them on his back and within her reach so she could continue preening all his feathers.

She was saved from finding a retort to that one by the buzzing of a phone on her nightstand. Stretching, she grabbed it to look at the display and to find that it wasn’t hers, so she held it in front of Lucifer’s nose.

This action, she found, impeded his view of her breasts, causing him to pout as he took his phone from her. “Lucifer Morningstar,” he said brightly, sounding not in the least annoyed at the interruption.

Neither would he be annoyed, Chloe mused, if the caller had come in person to barge in on them. Privacy was still a foreign concept to him, and she doubted she’d ever be able to get him to truly grasp it.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you for asking,” he said, but then his smile slid off his face. “Why should I do that? Uh, what was your name again?”

He listened for a bit while Chloe watched his expression grow steadily more serious.

“Sorry to interrupt, Doctor,” he finally said. “I understand your concern, but none of that’s necessary. I assure you that I’m in perfect health. And if I were in any way contagious, you humans would have died out millennia ago, before the first of you ever left Eden, in fact.”

 _Is that the hospital?_ Chloe mouthed at him. She was getting a bad feeling.

He nodded, rolling his eyes. “I am, yes. And she is perfectly fine as well…. That is none of your business…. Fine, I’ll let you do that, if it’ll get you all to shut up about this. I’m not ill. And if I were, it wouldn’t concern you. My contagions can’t affect you, your contagions can’t affect me. I have this on very good authority. Also, I’m immortal.”

Chloe made cut-throat motions at him, but he merely looked at her in confusion.

“In one hour, fine. I’ll be there.” He disconnected the call, shaking his head. “Humans.”

“Who was that?”

He gave an explosive sigh. Sitting up, he shrugged his wings away, and Chloe tried not to be disappointed. “A Dr. Sullivan, who apparently attempted to treat me in that hospital I barely remember being in. He’s asked to see me so he can, and I quote, ‘stop his colleagues from forcibly locking me in quarantine’.” He looked at her questioningly. “Could they do that?”

“Yes.” She, too, sat up. “They absolutely can. If they think you’re carrying anything that could trigger an epidemic, they’re even obligated to.” She gave him a bleak look. “This isn’t good, Lucifer.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see what could go wrong. I’ll meet this doctor in the hospital, convince him that I’m the Devil and that his human medical rules don’t apply to me, and be back home in time for lunch.” He grinned, giving her a sultry look. “Or dessert, as the case may be.”

Chloe fought down a vision of dozens of figures in hazmat suits tackling her Devil to the ground to lock him into a bunker with no way out. _He’s the Devil,_ she told herself. _They can’t contain him. No one can. He’ll be fine._

Then another thought assailed her. “What was that about me? Being perfectly fine? Oh no.” She gathered the duvet closer to herself. “They think you’re contagious, and that you infected me with whatever they think you’ve got.”

He gave her a bright look. “I won’t let them drag you into this, Chloe.”

“But if they ask you outright, you won’t be able to lie. You just basically told them that you’re together with someone.”

“Chloe.” His expression didn’t change. “Not telling lies doesn’t mean that I’m forced to tell the truth. I do have the option of simply refusing to answer.” He took her hand and kissed it. “It’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ll let Dr. Sullivan try to take a blood sample - try being the operative word - and give him a glimpse of Hell if that’s not sufficient, while you stay here and enjoy your Sunday with your offspring. They won’t bother you with this. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Lucifer spotted the ambulance while he was circling the hospital parking lot to find a good spot for his Corvette, wondering which part of “I am in perfect health” this Dr. Sullivant hadn’t managed to grasp. Now, he was aware that ambulances weren’t exactly a rare commodity near a hospital, but this one clearly was waiting for someone rather than transporting a patient, and it didn’t take superhuman intelligence to guess who they were waiting for.

He parked, got out, and sauntered towards the hospital main entrance. As expected, three goons in a modern version of the medieval pest doctor outfit got out of the ambulance and came straight for him.

Greeting them with his most polite smile, he said, “Halloween already? My, doesn’t time fly.”

“Lucifer Morningstar?” one of them mumbled through the surgical mask covering his lower face.

He couldn’t resist. Putting one hand onto his mouth, he gave an unintelligible reply.

The one who had spoken rolled his eyes while the other two came up to him to grab one of his upper arms each.

Glaring at them - they were going to crease his Cucinelli - he removed his hand from his mouth. “I’m sorry, I thought this was the traditional greeting. Where are we going?” he added when they started dragging him towards the ambulance.

“Just come along, please,” the one who had spoken before - Lucifer was going to call him Huey - advised him.

“Fine, fine,” he said amiably, letting himself be dragged. This was going to be fun.

They shoved him inside the ambulance and slammed the door from outside. A clicking sound indicated that they had engaged the central locking.

Humming to himself, Lucifer looked around. A light was on, illuminating the sad fact that the interior of the ambulance was bare of anything to play with; not even a single syringe here, let alone any interesting drugs.

While he was examining his surroundings, the voices of the pest doctors could be heard outside. They didn’t seem to reckon with his supernatural hearing.

“We need to evacuate the way to Quarantine before we bring him in,” one of them said.

“No need, the gas is ready for deployment. We’ll just put a mask on him and wheel him in.” That was Huey’s voice.

 _Gas?_ Now _that_ was interesting. He hoped it was laughing gas. He was really in a mood for it. Tapping his foot, he tried to spot the gas vent, and promptly got a faceful of cold air while something started hissing like an angry cat.

Reflexively squeezing his eyes shut, he inhaled deeply, waiting for an abnormal urge to laugh, but it didn’t come. Pesky supernatural metabolism, ruining all his earthly fun.

The hissing continued for a bit while Lucifer took out his phone to send a quick text to the Detective.

_Would I be guilty of murder if I startled health professionals to death?_

The answer came promptly.

_be nice to them theyre only doing their jobs_

He sighed and typed,

_Your wish is my command, my love._

Putting his phone away, he tapped his foot some more. He hated waiting. Waiting was such a waste of time.

Outside, a voice said, “Five minutes.”

Right. The Detective had said not to startle them, so Lucifer knocked against the door instead of letting them come in unprepared. “Hello?” he called. “It’s getting a bit boring in here, so I’m coming out now, alright?”

There was silence outside, which Lucifer took as assent. Putting a hand against the door, he forced the lock to open itself and pushed.

There was a smidge of resistance, so he pushed a bit harder and heard a dull thud of something falling over. The door opened easily after that.

He stuck his head out to see Huey, Dewey, and Louie scrambling to get back to their feet while trying to keep him in sight, which was so funny that he laughed, all without the benefit of any gas.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, I didn’t know you were behind that door. Were you coming in? If so, you need to bring drinks, and cards. I’d suggest a foursome, but I’m not doing the casual sex thing anymore, so that’s your loss. But I must admit I’ve never done it in an ambulance before.” While he talked, he hopped down out of the ambulance, grinning at them.

_Pest doctors: 0; Lucifer: 1._

 

* * *

 

“So, honey,” Chloe’s mother was saying on the phone, “what’s the most amazing thing that happened to you today?”

It was such a typical Mom question that Chloe had to smile. “Well,” she said, “lots of amazing things happened today, actually. But I did get a text from the Devil himself saying ‘your wish is my command, my love’.”

Her mother snorted ladylike. “I do hope you won’t ask me to refer to you as ‘Queen of Hell’ from now on.”

“Nah, Satan’s abdicated his throne,” Chloe said, opening the fridge to check out the availability of a light snack.

“I see. How _is_ Lucifer doing these days?”

That actually made Chloe pause in the act of grabbing a yoghurt. She never knew how seriously Mom was taking life at any given moment. Neither could she guess how much of what she’d been telling her about Lucifer she actually believed. “He’s having fun, I hope,” she said. “What with his extended family giving him so much grief recently, he deserves it.”

“Yes, family can be _such_ a drag,” Mom mock-sympathized, and Chloe rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’m calling because I miss you, sweetie. How about we try again with that family dinner? No murder suspect gatecrashers this time, though. What do you say?”

Chloe tried to keep the smile out of her voice. “Would this family dinner include Lucifer’s family?”

“Why not? The table at your new place is big enough.”

 _Right._ She imagined Lucifer, Amenadiel, Sachiel, and that currently unnamed new brother of his who had recently put in an appearance, plus Mom, Dan, Trixie, and herself. It would be a riot. She’d definitely need strong alcohol to get through it. “How about we ask Lucifer if we can do it at his place? I’m sure he’d be delighted.” And he had lots of booze available.

“Well, it’s fine with me if it’s fine with him,” Mom said. “Will I get to meet his Father? You know, He who art in Heaven?”

Chloe nearly snorted yoghurt through her nose. She’d known that woman all her life and _still_ couldn’t tell whether she was joking. “I doubt He would bother with us, even if He ever deigned to come down here,” she said when she could speak again.

“That’s true, honey,” Mom said. “He must be _so_ busy. Well, we’ll just reserve a seat for Him in case He does find the time.”

 _Lucifer will just_ love _this,_ Chloe thought but didn’t say out loud.

 

* * *

 

The situation was just about to become boring once again when a fourth pest doctor emerged from the hospital, heading straight for the little group currently made out of three stooges and one Devil.

“Sorry, Mr. Morningstar,” the newcomer mumbled through his surgical mask - this would never cease to be funny - and promptly leveled a gun at him.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Lucifer began. There was a plop, and something impacted his chest.

Not a bullet, though. There was none of the familiar biting pain from a high-velocity lead projectile hitting his invulnerable skin. Instead, something longish bounced off him with barely even a sting, falling to the ground in front of him.

A syringe with its needle all bent.

Dismissing all that as irrelevant, Lucifer grinned at the newcomer. “Oh, _now_ I recognize your voice! Dr. Sullivan, is it? Weren’t you supposed to be on my side? They’ve already tried to lock me up forcibly, so you’d better step up your game!”

He realized that his words had probably fallen on deaf ears, because the foursome of mummed up doctors were apparently busy processing the fact that he was still upright.

“Right,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I believe I’ll need to bring you gentlemen up to speed first. I’m the Devil. I’m immortal, and invulnerable. You can’t tranquilize me, or shoot me, or bring me down with whatever knock-out gas you tried on me in there. Also, you can’t lock me up.” He nodded at the wide-open ambulance doors behind him. “No earthly lock will hold me, as you can see. With me so far?”

Four pairs of wide eyes met his.

“Lovely. Second of all, I don’t get ill. I’m not running a fever, either. It’s my normal body temperature, because I’m the Devil. You might say I’m _hot.”_ He giggled at his own pun. “Still with me?”

The eyes continued to regard him in silence, giving no indication of comprehension.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “was I too fast? Do you need to sit down? Oh, I know.” He reached into his breast pocket for his flask.

This movement elicited a reaction from Sullivan, who dropped his spent tranq gun. “Please,” he said, “don’t shoot us.”

Lucifer pulled out his flask and held it out to him. “Why would I shoot you? You’re only doing your jobs.” He nodded towards the hospital. “So, shall we relocate in there to get the part where you try to draw blood from me and fail over and done with? I understand that you triggered a procedure that needs to run its course, so please, do let me know how we can speed up and finish it. I do have other things to attend to.”

 

* * *

 

“All sorted,” Lucifer reported, shrugging out of his suit jacket and tossing it over the backrest of a chair with that effortless elegance of his.

“Did you show them your Devil face?” Trixie wanted to know.

“No, child. Turned out that wasn’t necessary.”

Chloe threw him a suspicious look. “Are they okay?” She totally had not been watching the local news for any hints of unusual activities near the hospital. Or at least, that’s what she’d testify, even under duress. The fact that there had been nothing of interest had reassured her almost but not quite.

“They are fine, my love,” Lucifer said, sitting down and looking with interest at the card game in progress.

Wordlessly, Trixie dealt him in while he bought his tokens (gummy bears this time).

“We had a nice, long chat about things, and in the end, I put them in contact with Miss Lopez, who will answer whatever boringly complicated questions remain. But they couldn’t argue with the fact that someone who occasionally has inexplicably glowing eyes isn’t quite human, so they finally conceded that their rules don’t apply to me.”

“Lucifer….”

“Don’t worry,” he interrupted her impending lecture, “I eased them into it quite gently. No one passed out, and there was no screaming at any point during the proceedings.”

She gave him a long look that he returned with his raised-eyebrows innocent expression, then she decided to let it go. The cat was out of the bag with a vengeance, anyway.

Interesting times lay ahead, for sure. And speaking of…

“Mom called,” she said. “She wants to have a dinner. All the family, including yours.”

Lucifer looked at her as if she’d suggested they have sex in front of Trixie. “Everyone?” His voice rose up into falsetto register at the last syllable.

She nodded. “Yep. Everyone. She’s not exactly expecting your Father, but she did say that He’d be welcome of course if He felt like joining. Oh, and we’re commissioning your place. Easier to reach by flight.”

He continued to stare at her. “ _Bloody Hell._ ”


End file.
